Latinum podcast

 The Latinum podcast –  http://latinum.mypodcast.com –  has now compiled its third year of statistics. Large numbers of users keep visiting the podcast – between 150 – 200 new visitors every day, with thousands of audio files downloaded every 24 hours.

Those without fast internet connections can now purchase the podcast mp3s on DVD at the Latinum Store where prices are kept to a minimum – http://latinumstore.blogspot.com/ Latinum specialises in making audio courses from out of copyright Latin texts – such as Adler’s Practical Grammar, Corderius, and Comenius.

The most recent compilation is a 17 hour audio DVD with a beginner’s introduction to De Bello Gallico. This year, for the first time, Latinum was chuffed to see it had picked up a significant number of visitors from the Vatican – 177 unique visits over the course of the year ( repeat visits do not figure in the stats).Latinum started collecting visitor statistics in 2008. Since 4 May 2008: 127,127 unique visitors have visited the site, and an average of 250 000 individual audio files are downloaded per month.

 Over 5000 of the visitors to Latinum in the last 12 months were from the UK. Schola, http://schola.ning.com the social networking site linked to Latinum, which only permits its users to use Latin, now has almost 1500 members. Schola started out as a free network hosted on Ning – this year, Ning is closing all its free networks – and will be charging $20 a month ground rent. Because of the language issue, Schola could not migrate elsewhere. The members of Schola rapidly responded, and in 2 days, sufficient funds were raised to cover the hosting of Schola for the next 15 months. Schola continues to grow at the rate of around 2-3 new members per day.

Evan Millner , London.